Library of Congress

The license plate on Jim Knipe's car reads "69 INDY." Last year, he said, Mario Andretti autographed the plate for him. "I'm a pretty heavy-duty Mario Andretti fan," Knipe, a 58-year-old Bethlehem resident, said this week. Considering that it has been more than 20 years since Andretti drove his final IndyCar series race, the fact that Knipe still has such a passionate interest in the 1967 Daytona 500 winner, 1969 Indianapolis 500 winner, 1978 Formula One world champion and four-time Indy-car national champion is beyond commendable. But this week, Knipe has taken that passion to another level. On Tuesday, Knipe initiated a petition to get the...

Singer Billy Joel, for whom many Lehigh Valley residents have a soft spot in their hearts -- or cringe at -- because of his 1982 hit "Allentown" -- will return to Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park on Aug. 13 for a record-breaking fourth show...

"I'll Be Home For Christmas" always has struck me as one of the most poignant Christmas songs.
It was first recorded by Bing Crosby in 1943, when so many American men were overseas fighting World War II, and it was written from the standpoint...

Carla Hayden is one of Baltimore's best-known book lovers, one who has spent 21 years at the helm of the city's Enoch Pratt Free Library. When the busy bibliophile takes time off to travel, she appreciates accommodations where books are part of the...

Who else but the eclectic, occasionally electronic, string quartet Ethel could find inspiration to create a major multimedia project from documentary images amassed by the Environmental Protection Agency back in the 1970s?
Ethel opens the Williams...

Photographs of Bethlehem Steel Corporation taken by long-time industrial photographer Peter Treiber of Bethlehem have been accepted into the Library of Congress' permanent collection.
Treiber began photographing plants, mines and shipyards of the now...

MILEY CYRUSIn April, Miley Cyrus' Bangerz Tour was the talk of the industry, about how she entered the stage by sliding down a huge tongue and exited by straddling a flying hot dog. Then, suddenly, the tour stopped, its Philadelphia date...

Billy Joel is being honored by the Library of Congress, and it's referencing his song "Allentown" in bestowing the award.Joel is the newest recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, Librarian of Congress James H....

What do you know about Thomas Jefferson?
"He wrote the Declaration of Independence!" one boy answered.
"He was the third president!" answered another.
"He was a nice man," said 5-year-old Hannah, who added that, "I...

Jean Jennings
JeanKnowsCars.com
What makes a woman crazy about an automobile? I can only speak for myself. I grew up in the country surrounded by a dairy farm and five brothers. To me, cars were freedom. When I was 14 years old, as an exchange student...

Jean Jennings
JeanKnowsCars.com
What makes a woman crazy about an automobile? I can only speak for myself. I grew up in the country surrounded by a dairy farm and five brothers. To me, cars were freedom. When I was 14 years old, as an exchange student...

Minnesota novelist Louise Erdrich, a celebrated author who has won several literary awards, now has another prestigious prize to her name. The author of "Love Medicine" and "Tracks" is this year's winner of the Library of Congress...

"I want to make you the boss of your camera," says E. David Luria to the five budding photographers gathered around him in Lafayette Park across from the White House.
We look down at our cameras — DSLRs and point-and-shoots — and consider the...

Scott Cameron managed the careers of blues greats Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and others in the 1970s and 1980s in what should have been a boom time for the artists.
White rock bands — including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and the Doors — covered his...

The black-and-white photograph of Rosa Parks on the bus looks familiar.
She’s staring forward, reenacting her moment in history as if preparing for a place in a grade school textbook on the civil rights movement, conservatively dressed in a hat and...

Steven Spielberg's 1998 World War II epic, "Saving Private Ryan," Joel and Ethan Coen's cult comedy "The Big Lebowski" and the 1976 drama "Please Don't Bury Me Alive!" — considered by historians to be the first Chicano...

The best box sets are their own worlds, aural encapsulations so fully imagined that five or six hours becomes something to get lost in, like a Brontë sisters bender or a Martin Scorsese weekend.
These are gifts that can help opinionated folkie...

1. Prepare to share. Family members may want their own copies of Grandma's wedding album. You can scan and digitize prints and slides at home (a photo scanner starts at about $200), but if you have a lot of pics, send them to a service such as...

It is 1861 and the two men are going off to war. They sit side by side before the camera, their elbows and knees touching. They wear the uniform of the Confederacy and are armed with pistols, knives and a shotgun.
But one is white, the other black; one...